Born to a wealthy family in New York City, Sickles was involved in a number of scandals, most notably the public slaying of his wife's lover, Philip Barton Key II, a U.S. Attorney and son of Francis Scott Key, whom Sickles gunned down in broad daylight in Lafayette Square, across the street from the White House.[2] He was acquitted after using temporary insanity as a legal defense for the first time in United States history. This became a defense associated with 'crimes of passion' (crime passionnel in French).

Sickles devoted considerable effort to trying to gain credit for helping achieve the Union victory at Gettysburg, writing articles and testifying before Congress in a manner that denigrated the intentions and actions of his superior officer, the army commander, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade. After the war, Sickles was appointed as a commander for military districts in the South during Reconstruction. He also served as U.S. Minister to Spain. Later he was re-elected to Congress, where he helped pass legislation to preserve the Gettysburg Battlefield.[4]

In 1819, Sickles was born in New York City to Susan Marsh Sickles and George Garrett Sickles, a patent lawyer and politician.[5] (His year of birth is sometimes given as 1825, and Sickles was known to have claimed as such. Historians speculate that Sickles chose to appear younger when he married a woman half his age.) He learned the printer's trade and studied at the University of the City of New York (now New York University).[6] He studied law in the office of Benjamin Butler, was admitted to the bar in 1846, and was elected as a member of the New York State Assembly (New York Co.) in 1847.[5]

On September 27, 1852, Sickles married Teresa Bagioli against the wishes of both families—he was 32, she about 15 or 16.[7] She was reported as sophisticated for her age, speaking five languages.

Sickles was censured by the New York State Assembly for escorting a known prostitute, Fanny White, into its chambers. He also reportedly took her to England, while leaving his pregnant wife at home. He presented White to Queen Victoria, using as her alias the surname of a New York political opponent.[5]

"You are here to fix the price of the marriage bed!", roared Associate Defense Attorney John Graham, in a speech so packed with quotations from Othello, Judaic history and Roman law that it lasted two days and later appeared as a book.

Sickles surrendered at Attorney GeneralJeremiah Black's house, a few blocks away on Franklin Square, and confessed to the murder. After a visit to his home, accompanied by a constable, Sickles was taken to jail. He received numerous perquisites, including being allowed to retain his personal weapon, and receive numerous visitors. So many visitors came that he was granted the use of the head jailer's apartment to receive them.[11] They included many congressmen, senators, and other leading members of Washington society. President James Buchanan sent Sickles a personal note.[citation needed]

Harper's Magazine reported that the visits of his wife's mother and her clergyman were painful for Sickles. Both told him that Teresa was distracted with grief, shame, and sorrow, and that the loss of her wedding ring (which Sickles had taken on visiting his home) was more than Teresa could bear.[citation needed]

Sickles was charged with murder. He secured several leading politicians as defense attorneys, among them Edwin M. Stanton, later to become Secretary of War, and Chief Counsel James T. Brady who, like Sickles, was associated with Tammany Hall. Sickles pleaded temporary insanity—the first use of this defense in the United States.[12] Before the jury, Stanton argued that Sickles had been driven insane by his wife's infidelity, and thus was out of his mind when he shot Key. The papers soon trumpeted that Sickles was a hero for "saving all the ladies of Washington from this rogue named Key".[13]

Sickles had obtained a graphic confession from Teresa; it was ruled inadmissible in court, but, was leaked by him to the press and printed in the newspapers in full. The defense strategy ensured that the trial was the main topic of conversations in Washington for weeks, and the extensive coverage of national papers was sympathetic to Sickles.[14] In the courtroom, the strategy brought drama, controversy, and, ultimately, an acquittal for Sickles.[citation needed]

Sickles publicly forgave Teresa, and "withdrew" briefly from public life, although he did not resign from Congress. The public was apparently more outraged by Sickles's forgiveness and reconciliation with his wife, than by the murder and his unorthodox acquittal.[15]

In the 1850s, Sickles had received a commission in the 12th Regiment of the New York Militia, and had attained the rank of major.[16] (He insisted on wearing his militia uniform for ceremonial occasions while serving in London, and caused a minor diplomatic scandal by snubbing Queen Victoria at an Independence Day celebration.[17])

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Sickles worked to repair his public image by raising volunteer units in New York for the Union Army. Because of his previous military experience and political connections, he was appointed colonel of one of the four regiments he organized. He was promoted to brigadier general of volunteers in September 1861, where he was notorious before beginning any fighting.

Sickles was a close ally of Maj. Gen.Joseph Hooker, his original division commander, who eventually commanded the Army of the Potomac. Both men had notorious reputations as political climbers and as hard-drinking ladies' men. "Accounts at the time compared their army headquarters to a rowdy bar and bordello."

Sickles' division was in reserve at the Battle of Fredericksburg. On January 16, 1863, PresidentAbraham Lincoln nominated Sickles for promotion to the grade of major general to rank from November 29, 1862.[18] Although the U.S. Senate did not confirm the promotion until March 9, 1863, and the President did not formally appoint Sickles until March 11, 1863,[18] Hooker, now commanding the Army of the Potomac, gave Sickles command of the III Corps in February 1863.

This decision was controversial as Sickles became the only corps commander without a West Point military education. His energy and ability were conspicuous in the Battle of Chancellorsville. He aggressively recommended pursuing troops he saw in his sector on May 2, 1863. Sickles thought the Confederates were retreating, but these turned out to be elements of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's corps, stealthily marching around the Union flank. He also vigorously opposed Hooker's orders moving him off good defensive terrain in Hazel Grove. In both of these cases, it is easy to imagine the disastrous battle turning out very differently for the Union if Hooker had heeded his advice.

Map of battle, July 2. Sickles' movement of III Corps can be seen in the southwestern quadrant.

Confederate

Union

The Battle of Gettysburg was the occasion of the most famous incident and the effective end of Sickles' military career. On July 2, 1863, Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. George G. Meade ordered Sickles' corps to take up defensive positions on the southern end of Cemetery Ridge, anchored in the north to the II Corps and to the south, the hill known as Little Round Top. Sickles was unhappy to see the "Peach Orchard," a slightly higher terrain feature, to his front. He violated orders by marching his corps almost a mile in front of Cemetery Ridge. This had two effects: it greatly diluted the concentrated defensive posture of his corps by stretching it too thin, and it created a salient that could be bombarded and attacked from multiple sides. About this time (3 p.m.), Meade called a meeting of his corps commanders.[20] Sickles did not appear.[20] An aide to Brig. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren soon reported the situation.[20] Meade and Warren rode to Sickles' position, where Meade demanded an explanation from the general.[20] Meade refused Sickles' offer to withdraw because he realized it was too late[21] and the Confederates would soon attack, putting a retreating force in even greater peril.[20]

The Confederates attacked at about the time the meeting finished and Meade returned to his headquarters.[20] The Confederate assault by Lt. Gen.James Longstreet's corps, primarily by the division of Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws, smashed the III Corps and rendered it useless for further combat. Gettysburg campaign historian Edwin B. Coddington assigns "much of the blame for the near disaster" in the center of the Union line to Sickles.[22]Stephen W. Sears wrote that "Dan Sickles, in not obeying Meade's explicit orders, risked both his Third Corps and the army's defensive plan on July 2.[23] However, Sickles' maneuver has recently been credited by John Keegan with blunting the whole Confederate offensive that was intended to cause the collapse of the Union line.[24] Similarly, James M. McPherson wrote that "Sickles's unwise move may have unwittingly foiled Lee's hopes."[21]

During the height of the Confederate attack, Sickles was wounded by a cannonball that mangled his right leg. He was carried by a detail of soldiers to the shade of the Trostle farmhouse, where a saddle strap was applied as a tourniquet. He ordered his aide, Major Harry Tremain, "Tell General Birney he must take command." As Sickles was carried by stretcher to the III Corps hospital on the Taneytown Road, he attempted to raise his soldiers' spirits by grinning and puffing on a cigar along the way.[25] His leg was amputated that afternoon. He insisted on being transported to Washington, D.C., which he reached on July 4, 1863. He brought some of the first news of the great Union victory, and started a public relations campaign to defend his behavior in the conflict. On the afternoon of July 5, President Lincoln and his son, Tad, visited General Sickles, as he was recovering in Washington.[citation needed]

Sickles's leg, along with a cannonball similar to the one that shattered it, on display at the National Museum of Health and Medicine

Sickles had recent knowledge of a new directive from the Army Surgeon General to collect and forward "specimens of morbid anatomy ... together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed" to the newly founded Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C. He preserved the bones from his leg and donated them to the museum in a small coffin-shaped box, along with a visiting card marked, "With the compliments of Major General D.E.S." For several years thereafter, he reportedly visited the limb on the anniversary of the amputation. The museum, now known as the National Museum of Health and Medicine, still displays this artifact. (Other Civil War-era specimens of note on display include the hip of General Henry Barnum.)

Sickles ran a vicious campaign against General Meade's character after the Civil War. Sickles felt that Meade had wronged him at Gettysburg and that credit for winning the battle belonged to him. In anonymous newspaper articles and in testimony before a congressional committee, Sickles maintained that Meade had secretly planned to retreat from Gettysburg on the first day. While his movement away from Cemetery Ridge may have violated orders, Sickles always asserted that it was the correct move because it disrupted the Confederate attack, redirecting its thrust, and effectively shielding the Union's real objectives, Cemetery Ridge and Cemetery Hill. Sickles's redeployment took Confederate commanders by surprise, and historians have argued about its ramifications ever since.

Sickles eventually received the Medal of Honor for his actions, although it took him 34 years to get it. The official citation accompanying his medal recorded that Sickles "displayed most conspicuous gallantry on the field, vigorously contesting the advance of the enemy and continuing to encourage his troops after being himself severely wounded."[26]

Despite his one-legged disability, Sickles remained in the army until the end of the war and was disgusted that Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant would not allow him to return to a combat command. In 1867, he received appointments as brevet brigadier general and major general in the regular army for his services at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg, respectively.[6]

Sickles maintained his reputation as a ladies' man in the Spanish royal court and was rumored to have had an affair with the deposed Queen Isabella II. Following the death of Teresa in 1867, in 1871 he married Carmina Creagh, the daughter of Chevalier de Creagh of Madrid, a Spanish Councillor of State. They had two children.

Of the principal senior generals who fought at Gettysburg, virtually all, with the conspicuous exception of Sickles, have been memorialized with statues. When asked why there was no memorial to him, Sickles supposedly said, "The entire battlefield is a memorial to Dan Sickles." The monument to the New York Excelsior Brigade was originally commissioned to include a bust of Sickles, but it includes a figure of an eagle instead.[citation needed]

^ ab"Assassination of Philip Barton Key, by Daniel E. Sickles of New York". Hartford Daily Courant. March 1, 1859. Retrieved November 30, 2010. For more than a year there have been floating rumors of improper intimacy between Mr. Key and Mrs. Sickles. They have from time to time attended parties, the opera, and rode out together. Mr. Sickles has heard of these reports, but would never credit them until Thursday evening last. On that evening, just as a party was about breaking up at his house, Mr Sickles received among his papers...

^Keneally, p. 21, states 15. W.A. Swanberg, Sickles the Incredible, pp. 77-80 states 16. Relying in part on Swanberg, 77-80 and in part on other sources, Hessler, pp. 4-6 says 16. Teresa's exact birth date in 1836 is unknown.

^Assumption.edu: "Both Harper's Weekly and Leslie's ran images of Sickles in prison. Harper's was the more bathetic. It showed a haggard sufferer, hands clasped as if in prayer, staring upwards. Light illumines his face and the wall immediately behind, but the rest of the cell is in shadows. Its title was 'Hon. Daniel E. Sickles in prison at Washington,' but it might well have been captioned 'More Sinned Against Than Sinning.' In a later issue, the magazine editorialized against what it described as a publicity campaign to create sympathy for the Congressman. ... The New York Times, the city's other major Democratic daily and the New York Herald's chief rival for the ear of the Buchanan administration, editorialized that the homicide in no way unfitted the Congressman for office." The source gives many more such cites.

Hessler, James A. Sickles at Gettysburg: The Controversial Civil War General Who Committed Murder, Abandoned Little Round Top, and Declared Himself the Hero of Gettysburg. New York: Savas Beatie LLC, 2009. ISBN978-1-932714-84-5.

Hessler, James A. Sickles at Gettysburg: The Controversial Civil War General Who Committed Murder, Abandoned Little Round Top, and Declared Himself the Hero of Gettysburg. New York: Savas Beatie, 2009. ISBN978-1-932714-64-7.

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